Abstract

"The McDonald's-Genex Joint Venture in Yugoslavia, 1979-1991"

Emilija Cvetković, Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade (emilija.cvetkovic@ien.bg.ac.rs)

This paper examines the McDonald's-Genex joint venture as a case of business co-creation across ideological divides during the late Cold War. Drawing on archival sources, corporate documents, and oral histories, I analyze how the US fast-food chain and Yugoslav enterprise Genex navigated socialist self-management to establish the first McDonald's in a socialist country (1988).
The research reveals multiple layers of co-creation spanning twelve years. After failed attempts with PKB (1979) and Prokupac (1983-1986), the McDonald's-Genex partnership required extensive adaptation to reconcile capitalist franchise standards with Yugoslav workers' self-management, creating innovative organizational structures. Technology transfer was bidirectional: Yugoslav workers trained at Hamburger University became crucial agents in McDonald's Eastern European expansion, facilitating openings in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union.
Local suppliers co-created production standards to meet McDonald's specifications while maintaining domestic sourcing. Companies like Žitoprodukt supplied both Yugoslav and other European McDonald's locations, showing how peripheral actors became central to global operations.
This case challenges narratives of one-way Americanization, revealing mutual adaptation where friction and failed attempts were integral to co-creation. The McDonald's-Genex venture shows how business partnerships transcended political boundaries through pragmatic compromise, with both partners reshaping practices in unexpected ways. This study contributes to understanding how multinational corporations and socialist enterprises co-created new organizational forms that ultimately facilitated post-socialist economic transitions.